The TV coverage of The Ashes from Direct TV is mostly quite good. However, around 10:00pm or so it starts to get a bit juddery. Some days it has been worse than others. As it is a time of day phenomenon, Kevin and I suspected it might be an issue with satellite positions. I took a look at the controls we got on the web site and noticed that there was a section at the bottom about choosing another network if you were having trouble with the signal. Naively I thought this was something about re-routing the Internet connection. I was wrong. The default coverage if from Channel 9, but choosing Network 2 instead gave me coverage from BSkyB. Wow!

And this proved the point. The picture quality from Sky was not as good as from Channel 9, but the judders vanished completely. I’m assuming this is because the signal that Direct TV is getting in this case comes across the Atlantic rather than across the Pacific.

All we got commentary-wise last night before we had to go get some sleep (the alarm being set for 3:00am because of a very early flight) was Athers and Naz wittering on aimlessly, but I have high hopes of Kevin getting to listen to Bumble and Boycott in full flow. Sky gives us their ads too, which will be interesting (though I’d much rather see the Australian ads, or better still New Zealand ones which, from what we’ve seen with the rugby, are hilarious).